(Updated below)
I was deeply saddened to learn today of the death of the Edwards candidacy. A decent man who fought for the poor and the working class, Edwards deserved a better fate from the progressive establishment whose values he represented. The endorsements are rolling in, now, some for Obama, some for Clinton. But there is an appearance of safety about those endorsements, now, choosing as some are between the last two standing in this Democratic war of attrition.
You can't endorse a candidate when there's only one left, I suppose. But the endorsements coming now, even Kennedy's, when Edwards was all but an afterthought, all but dropped out, have the appearance of picking the odds on favorite rather than philosophical alignment. Everyone likes to pick a winner, but there's something cowardly about waiting until you can endorse the candidate you feel reasonably certain will win.
Where have the progressives been during this campaign?
I admire Edward Kennedy greatly, for his service, and for his years of advancing progressive causes. But the truth is that when there were two progressive candidates in the early stages of this race, Kucinich and Edwards, Kennedy remained silent, and waited to see who was a viable candidate before putting his opinion forward.
He's not alone. John Kerry waited until it was clear his former running mate had littel chance of winning before making an endorsement. Both of Massachusetts' safe senators chose to take the easy route, choosing one of the top two candidates late in the game rather than backing a dark horse progressive early in the campaign.
Al Gore, progressive champion. A hero of mine, for sure. No endorsement.
Maybe senators and politicians feel they can't be seen backing a loser, but what's to stop the progressive movement's top pundits and bloggers? You know--the ones who routinely criticize the Democratic party for their timidity, their refusal to take a stand? Their inability to police the blue dog Dems?
Well thanks to everyone who stayed on the sidelines up till now in this campaign, the two least progressive candidates are still alive.
The progressive voices on the Internet have steadfastly avoided endorsing a candidate.
Greenwald? No endorsement.
Kos? No edorsement.
Hamsher? No endorsement.
Digby? No endorsement.
Why? They want to be able to support the eventual nominee no matter who wins. Is that what they call keeping your powder dry? As much as I admire and respect each of these writers, they sure can't be neutral among the candidates. Why not say so? Why not stand up and be counted?
As a result, I'll repeat: we are left with arguably the two least progressive candidates in the race, the two promoted by the msm because of the great storyline their battle provides. The liberal blogosphere in its silence provided no counterpoint to this narrative.
My friend Cliff Schecter, without officially endorsing a candidate, managed to state unequivocally that Chris Dodd and John Edwards were the candidates he preferred in the early going. He stood up for the progressive movement without knowing who would eventually win. And now that both are out, I fully expect Cliff to support the eventual Democratic nominee. We all know that Clinton and Obama will be far superior to anyone the GOP has to offer.
My governor, Ted Strickland, made an endorsement I didn't agree with, but at least it was early, and decisive. (He endorsed Clinton.) My friends in Ohio, the great bloggers at the Chief Source, have advocated for Obama from the very beginning. I prefer Edwards, of course, but their many readers in Akron and Ohio never doubted where they stood. And I am sure that whoever the Dem nominee is, Clinton or Obama, he or she will have the full support of many who may have intitially backed their rival. That's politics.
But I don't think they represented the best the Dems had to offer. It's too bad that so many in positions of leadership, whether an elected position or a position of leadership created by the thousands and thousands of readers who, like me, flock to their sites every day. You can't blast the Democratic Congress for failing to exert leadership, for failing to take a stand, when you aren't willing to do so yourself.
It seems to me that there are a lot of progressives out there who could have stood up and been counted for the candidates they believed in, whether Kucinich, Dodd, or Edwards. Maybe some preferred Obama or Clinton. That's fine too. But make your preference known when it matters. Not after the dust settles.
Maybe next time the progressive movement will line up behind a candidate in the early going. If they stand on the sidelines again, the progressive voices of people like Dodd, Kucinich, and Edwards will be ignored by the corporate media that picks the winners.
UPDATE: Bob Cesca says it's time for progressives to unite around a candidate. Actually, Bob, that time was months ago. But great minds and all that.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Progressives' Silence Doomed Edwards
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Post Debate Unraveling
Go here for a good summary without reading an entire transcript. The main points are all here.
I thought Edwards did well again. After the jump I have posted a letter from Martin Luther King III that the Edwards campaign sent out yesterday. If you don't receive the campaign email, take a minute and read it. It's very moving, imploring Edwards to keep up his fight on behalf of the poor and the oppressed in the name of King's legacy. It repeats Edwards' affirmation during the debate that he's going to keep fighting for his issues, even if they aren't big vote getters.
I thought it was disgusting how many questions Obama and Clinton were asked about each other and their petty bickering. Time that could have been spent discussing issues. Instead we get, "Why don't you like him (her/her husband)?" Perfect demonstration of the failure of our political media to take the issues seriously. We have a world economic meltdown on our hands and CNN is worried about playground name calling. I wanted to smack Suzanne Malveaux.
The "sit down" part of the debate was a huge improvement, with Hillary doing a good job, I think, of putting the differences between the candidates into context. Obama at times seemed to be struggling for words. I worry about him frankly in a sparring match against a GOP opponent, although we've seen before how poorly a Republican can do in debates and still be considered the winner. Still, in spite of some winning lines, I thought Obama clearly came in third in this debate.
Edwards really drew blood tonight on the lobbyist issue. Hillary looked horrible on this issue, and when she accused Edwards of taking money from trial lawyers, he drilled her, saying it's not the same thing--lawyers represent citizens, not corporations, and they are contributing to his campaign not to enrich corporations but to be able to continue to SUE corporations on behalf of the little guy. Great answer, and shame on Hillary for trotting out the GOP trial lawyer bogey man. Then when it was Obama's turn he said, "No one's hands are clean." I thought that was a real admission of defeat on his part, really disappointing and cynical, and not indicative of the "hope" agenda he is advocating. I understand Obama is trying to be frank and candid, but he's wrong for one thing--Edwards' point is that his hands are clean--and for another, he sounds as though he's just willing to give up and let the lobbyists write the damn laws. So how, Obama, do you plan to fix it? At least Hillary went on to explain how she's fought lobbyists and supported public financing. Obama's answer was almost, "well, everyone does it." Pretty weak on what I think is a critical campaign issue. (And by the way, Russ Feingold, can you still dismiss Edwards after his comments tonight on this issue? Or is he still not as pure a liberal for you as his competitors?)
The King letter below.
Dear Senator Edwards:
It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.
I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.
From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.
So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III
Friday, January 18, 2008
If Feingold wanted a pure progressive why didn't he run?
Interesting piece on Russ Feingold via MyDD in which he questions Edwards' progressive credentials.
I did notice that as the primaries heated up, all of a sudden, all the presidential candidates — none of whom voted with me on the timeframe to withdraw from Iraq — all voted with me and when we did the Patriot Act stuff.
The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.
When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn't, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you're playing the game in Washington and another way when you're running for president, there's some of that going on.
I think that's obviously a fair criticism, but at least Edwards is adopting a progressive platform, even if it's a little late to the game. Feingold admits that Edwards is running on his agenda.... but he doesn't support that agenda? Doesn't make sense to me. Instead, he supports Obama and Clinton.
So it's a progressive platform, but he's not supporting it. I don't get it. Furthermore Feingold flirted with the presidency. It was pretty clear at the time that he was the most progressive Democrat considering running. If Feingold wanted a pure progressive in the race, why didn't he run? Seems like he should've if he wanted those views, and those votes, represented. Edwards' voting record isn't what I'd like--especially on Iraq--but the fact is he has come around to Feingold's point of view, the votes he stood for over the years.
But now Feingold won't support it, and says Edwards isn't "serious". I'm disappointed.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Why Not Edwards?
The Daytona Beach News Journal, home of columnist and friend of Into My Own Pierre Tristam, has published and endorsement that states the case for Edwards succinctly:
So much of what was great about America has been corrupted by the unprincipled policies of the Bush White House and Republican Congress that catered to wealth and privilege even as they weakened the middle class and abandoned the poor. Edwards grew up in a working-class family, working summers in a textile mill. He was the first in his family to go to college and is more eloquent and believable than the other contenders when each pledges to stand up to big business and other special interests.
He's not capturing national headlines after Barack Obama's win in the Iowa caucus and Hillary Clinton's comeback in New Hampshire last week. But only a small fraction of the primary votes have been cast. Florida Democrats can give Edwards a deserved boost toward the nomination Jan. 29. John Edwards has the intellectual clarity, values, experience, good judgment and message to represent his party well against the Republican challenger in November.
The Journal's editorial makes the point I have made here often (and at least one member of the Editorial board is a regular reader!): Edwards has the best credentials for challenging corporate power, having built his career doing so. As Edwards says, you can't sit at the table with corporate power and expect them to give up. You have to take power away from them. And yet too many voters seem unconvinced by that argument (or, thanks to the msm's journalistic malpractice, they haven't heard it).
Then I read Matt Stoller's piece on "Swing Liberals" in which he argues that the progressive base of the party, the creative class, and the bloggers don't appear to have coalesced around a single candidate, I wonder, "why not?" Stoller suggests that there isn't a passion out there for any candidate:
The data shows that creative class liberals and/or women and/or ideologically liberal blocks moved from Obama to Clinton. So far, Moveon, Democracy for America, blogs, and associated creative class liberal groups have remained either completely or mostly neutral in the primary. This is reflective not of any top-down decision-making, but of a basic lack of passion from the audience of those groups for any candidate. As one can see from the shifts of those groups from Iowa to New Hampshire, these are swing groups. That said, it's not clear to me that the internet left is that tied into these liberal voting blocks direct. We might be, but no one really knows.
I'm pretty sympathetic to Obama because his media reform proposals are quite good. But the more I hear about his other policies, the less inclined I am to give him credence as a progressive. And while ideology is only one form of identity-creation, it's one that would benefit Obama.
Anyway, it looks to me like the swing liberals are up for grabs in the primary.
So I'm reading this and thinking, Why not Edwards?
What does the guy have to do? He's had the most consistent progressive agenda throughout the campaign, and he's run a positive, uplifting campaign. He's talked about bread and butter issues that matter to working people. He's fought corporate irresponsibility and won. I don't get it.
I have to admit, there's something about Edwards that doesn't grab people in this personality and hype-driven media culture we are locked in. I think people have been drawn to Clinton in part because of her toughness against the GOP onslaught, and in part for nostalgia for the economic boom of the Clinton years. Obama is an exciting speaker, and has a great deal of personal energy. I think people are attracted to him because they feel those qualities will propel him to the White House. But as the Krugman column Stoller cites explains, his policy ideas are always a step behind... Edwards. But Edwards still can't catch a break.
Maybe Edwards will turn it around. Maybe he will still make a run. But it doesn't seem likely at this point. The media is against him, and the grassroots aren't lining up behind him. Too bad. He could have been the Dem's best hope.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Political Drive-by Shooting by Larry O'Donnell
Larry O'Donnell is someone I respect a lot for what he's written about national security and the CIA, the Plame case in particular.
But his Huffington Post drive-by shooting, which Jane Smiley deftly knocks down here, has to be one of the most idiotic political commentaries I've read this election cycle.
Wow, where did that come from?
Whatever his faults may be, John Edwards is running for President to represent the interests of the people, not lobbyists or corporate masters. To suggest that that is a "vanity" candidacy is a slap in the face to all those who support and work for his causes. And to suggest that he is standing in the way of a black candidate, and that is how he will be remembered, is really, really low. Could you even call that playing the race card? What would you call it?
I'll just call it a cheap shot. I really would have expected better out of Larry O'Donnell.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Poll: Edwards would win Ohio
A recent poll showed that John Edwards would fare best among Dems against potential GOP rivals.
Reported by the DDN; poll results after the jump.
Sarge (McCain) does the best among GOP rivals, but still loses 47-40 to Edwards.
If the election
for President was between Hillary Clinton (D) and
Rudy Giuliani (R):
Clinton: 44 percent
Giuliani: 37 percent
Undecided: 19 percent
Clinton (D) and
Mike Huckabee (R)
Huckabee: 45 percent
Clinton: 43 percent
Undecided: 11 percent
Clinton (D) and
John McCain (R):
McCain: 46 percent
Clinton: 42 percent
Undecided: 12 percent
Clinton (D) and
Mitt Romney (R)
Clinton: 45 percent
Romney: 40 percent
Undecided: 15 percent
John Edwards (D)
and Giuliani (R)
Edwards: 51 percent
Giuliani: 34 percent
Undecided: 14 percent
Edwards (D)
and Huckabee (R)
Edwards: 49 percent
Huckabee: 40 percent
Undecided: 10 percent
Edwards (D)
and McCain (R)
Edwards: 47 percent
McCain: 40 percent
Undecided: 13 percent
Edwards (D) and Romney (R)
Edwards: 53 percent
Romney: 33 percent
Undecided: 14 percent
Giuliani (R) and Barack Obama (D)
Obama: 47 percent
Giuliani: 37 percent
Undecided: 16 percent
Huckabee (R) and Obama (D)
Huckabee: 43 percent
Obama: 43 percent
Undecided: 14 percent
McCain (R) and Obama (D)
McCain: 45 percent
Obama: 42 percent
Undecided: 14 percent
Obama (D) and Romney (R)
Obama: 44 percent
Romney: 38 percent
Undecided: 18 percent
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Great Night for Edwards
Pretty obvious so far tonight that the top three candidates are awfully close. For Edwards, that means he was able to match the top two candidates without getting nearly as much media attention.
It will make Saturday's debate pretty interesting. Contrary to what Jane Hamsher says, I don't think Edwards needs to be nicer. I think he needs to continue to express his outrage. His fight against the influence of money in politics and his focus on poverty is the approach that will matter to voters. All three are opposed to the war. There isn't going to be a lot of room between the three of them on that issue.
But Edwards definitely needs to keep after the economic populist issues he's been hitting so far. It's the key to his success so far.
UPDATE: 9:53. Howard Dean was fantastic on Olbermann tonight. He needs to be on TV more often.
UPDATE: David Axelrod, explaining why younger women broke for Obama: "I think Barack has broad appeal." Is that supposed to be a joke?!
UPDATE: Great speech by Obama. That was inspiring.
"You have a choice"-Edwards
Cliff posted the campaigns' closing videos. Edwards' was far and away the best.
I'm not sure what's going to happen tonight, but Edwards has run a terrific campaign to date. The corporate media has chosen to ignore him, which has been frustrating, but Edwards has brought the issue of the influence of money over politics into focus in this campaign. I hope he is able to remain in the campaign for that reason. He's also focused on the economy and what it means to workers.
I realize that the conventional wisdom is that the campaign is about Iraq. But I don't think that's true so much in the primaries, where the differences aren't as sharp. The general election will be largely about what to do in Iraq, and if the GOP adopts the Bush position on Iraq, they'll lose in a landslide. But I think Democratic voters have to make a choice among candidates based on economic issues. So far, Edwards is the only one consistently making the pitch for working families, and making an issue of poverty in America. I hope that earns him votes tonight.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Edwards wins "Pakistan Test"
Via the Edwards campaign, I came across a nice editorial from the Washington Post discussing how the presidential candidates responded to the Bhutto assassination.
The editorial doesn't discuss Dodd, Richardson, Biden or Kucinich, typically focusing on the three top candidates, but nevertheless it provides an accurate assessment of Edwards' leadership, as much as someone outside the government can provide. Meanwhile it provides a devastating critique of Obama. Here's the most important graph:
Let's start with Mr. Edwards, who managed not only to get Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the phone Thursday but also to deliver a strong message. The candidate said he had encouraged Mr. Musharraf "to continue on the path to democratization [and] to allow international investigators to come in and determine what happened, what the facts were." Those are words the Pakistani president needs to hear from as many Americans as possible.
The full editorial is worth reading, and I've posted it after the jump.
THE ASSASSINATION of Benazir Bhutto presented U.S. presidential candidates with a test: Could they respond cogently and clearly to a sudden foreign policy crisis? Within hours some revealing results were in. One candidate, Democrat John Edwards, passed with flying colors. Another, Republican Mike Huckabee, flunked abysmally. Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain were serious and substantive; Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani were thin. And Barack Obama -- the Democratic candidate who claims to represent a new, more elevated brand of politics -- committed an ugly foul.
Let's start with Mr. Edwards, who managed not only to get Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the phone Thursday but also to deliver a strong message. The candidate said he had encouraged Mr. Musharraf "to continue on the path to democratization [and] to allow international investigators to come in and determine what happened, what the facts were." Those are words the Pakistani president needs to hear from as many Americans as possible. He has yet to confirm that the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections will go forward and risks a destabilizing backlash against his own government unless he delivers a full and credible account of the authors and circumstances of Ms. Bhutto's killing.
Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain also endorsed Pakistan's continued democratization. Each cited an acquaintance with Ms. Bhutto or Mr. Musharraf and opportunistically trumpeted their foreign policy experience -- but both also offered some cogent analysis. Ms. Clinton rightly cited "the failure of the Musharraf regime either to deal with terrorism or to build democracy," adding that "it's time that the United States sided with civil society in Pakistan."
At the other extreme was Mr. Huckabee, whose first statement seemed merely uninformed: He appeared not to know that Mr. Musharraf had ended "martial law" two weeks ago. That was better than the candidate's next effort, when he said an appropriate U.S. response would include "very clear monitoring of our borders . . . to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into our country." The cynicism of this attempt to connect Pakistan's crisis with anti-immigrant sentiment was compounded by its astonishing senselessness.
By comparison, the Giuliani and Romney statements were anodyne -- they deployed slogans about fighting terrorism or "jihadism" while avoiding serious comment about Pakistan. Mr. Obama similarly began by offering bland condolences to Pakistanis and noting that "I've been saying for some time that we've got a very big problem there."
Then Mr. Obama committed his foul -- a far-fetched attempt to connect the killing of Ms. Bhutto with Ms. Clinton's vote on the war in Iraq. After the candidate made the debatable assertion that the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan, his spokesman, David Axelrod, said Ms. Clinton "was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in the event today."
When questioned later about his spokesman's remarks, Mr. Obama stiffly defended them -- while still failing to offer any substantive response to the ongoing crisis. Is this Mr. Obama's way of rejecting "the same Washington game" he lambasted earlier in the day? If so, his game doesn't look very new, or attractive.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Can Progessives Unite Behind a Candidate?
The prospect of a Hillary Clinton nomination is troubling to many progressives. Some of the reasons for this were eloquently voiced by John Edwards today.
And a few weeks ago, around the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a leading presidential candidate held a fundraiser that was billed as a Homeland Security themed event in Washington, D.C. targeted to homeland security lobbyists and contractors for $1,000 a plate. These lobbyists, for the price of a ticket, would get a special "treat" — the opportunity to participate in small, hour long breakout sessions with key Democratic lawmakers, many of whom chair important sub committees of the homeland security committee. That presidential candidate was Senator Clinton.
Senator Clinton's road to the middle class takes a major detour right through the deep canyon of corporate lobbyists and the hidden bidding of K Street in Washington — and history tells us that when that bus stops there it is the middle class that loses.
When I asked Hillary Clinton to join me in not taking money from Washington lobbyists — she refused. Not only did she say that she would continue to take their money, she defended them.
There are other reasons for concern. One thing that has troubled me greatly as a progressive voter is the fact that Marc Penn, one of Clinton's most important strategists, has a PR firm that is representing Blackwater. There's the Iraq War vote which she has refused to disavow. Her refusal to commit to pulling US troops from Iraq. Her vote on the Iran resolution.
It's frustrating how support for Clinton continues to remain strong among Democrats. Certainly, in many ways she has been a loyal Democrat and has espoused progressive values on many issues. But is she the best candidate for progressives, and is she the most electable against the eventual GOP nominee?
Rasmussen has some interesting polling out right now which suggests that Clinton is "the unifying theme of the 2008 election." In their polling, they find that Clinton does equally well about any GOP rival. And that includes Ron Paul.
Most polling on general election match-ups involving Clinton look like a referendum rather than a choice between Clinton and a particular candidate. Using a three-poll rolling average to quiet any statistical noise, the Clinton effect becomes clear. The former First Lady earns between 46%and 49% of the vote against each of the top five Republican hopefuls. It doesn’t matter if it’s Rudy Giuliani or Mike Huckabee, John McCain or Fred Thompson.
If you average the results of the top five candidates, you find Clinton’s support at 48%. She also attracts 48% support when matched up with the little known Ron Paul. Adding further support to the notion that it’s all about Clinton is this tidbit-- among the voters who have never heard of Ron Paul or don’t know enough to have an opinion, Clinton attracts the exact same total--48%. So, whether the candidate is a frontrunner or an also ran—or even if voters have never heard of the candidate, Clinton earns about 48% of the vote. These numbers make sense when you consider that Clinton is by far the best known of all the candidates and that opinions of her are split roughly down the middle.
What this suggests to me is that Clinton is well known to the American public. And the fact that she is polling in the 46-48% range no matter who the opposition is suggests that the public has already made up their mind about her. Does that range of support at this stage mean she can't win? Well, I won't go that far. But it does seem to me that she would have an uphill battle changing perceptions that already exist and changing the way she has been defined by the right. The perceptions seem solid so far.
Does the same thing hold true for Democratic primary voters? Knowing her as well as they do, have they already made up their mind?
Progressive Democrats seem to be splitting up the rest of the electoral vote. Clinton in most polls seems to be in the 35-40% range, with the rest of the candidates well behind. But obviously, there are more primary voters against Clinton than for her right now. What would happen if, like Gore in 2000, she had only one opponent? Would she split the votes of Edwards supporters if he dropped out? Or would Edwards' supporters rally to another candidate like Obama or Dodd?
What if Edwards, Dodd, and Obama supporters, and the rest, rallied and unified behind one of the three? Suddenly the race would look very different, and Hillary's nomination wouldn't look so inevitable. Are there too many candidates for progressives to choose from? Should the candidates opposing Hillary agree to pool their delegates against her at the convention?
The race is a long way from over. Let's not forget that Dick Gephart was leading at this stage in 2004. But it seems to me that at some point progressives are going to have to rally around a candidate. Could be Obama. Could be Dodd. Could be Edwards. But to make their voices heard, progressives need to rally around someone. We have about two months to make it happen.
Monday, August 06, 2007
How to defeat Clinton
This is pretty interesting:
Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on Monday criticized former President Clinton, arguing that he allowed corporate insiders to shape the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement that has cost U.S. jobs.
Edwards' complaints about the former president beloved by voters in his own party was a defiant move meant to highlight rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's relationship with special interests. It comes two days after Clinton refused Edwards' challenge to stop taking campaign donations from lobbyists, saying many represent good causes.
I think this is how Edwards (and Obama) can defeat Hillary, and I gotta admit, she is playing right into his hands so far. By painting her as a consummate inside politician who capitulates to special interests, by painting her as the conservative wing of the Democratic party, which of course is not the reputation the right has given her. And she is acting the part at the moment.
Edwards is attacking her on economic grounds now, and as a friend to lobbyists. She and her staff had to be regrouping after she stupidly defended lobbyists in Chicago. But maybe not, because this response is about as dumb as it gets, not even answering the point, but touting her "experience" as a Washington insider:
Responding to the criticism, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, issued a memo highlighting recent polls showing the New York senator leading the Democratic field and offering a ready answer to any rivals.
"She is the candidate of experience and change, a combination no other candidate can match. As a result we will likely see more attacks from her Democratic opponents, despite their claims to be practicing a new kind of politics or eschewing intraparty attacks," Penn wrote.
What else to defeat Clinton? How about pointing out the smear campaigns that disrupted her husband's presidency? Any reason to believe we won't spend the first four years of her presidency discussing Whitewater, Vince Foster, Travelgate, FBI files, Monica, Paula Jones, and others all over again? The right wing noise machine was invented with the Clintons in mind. She is more vulnerable to it than any other candidate.
The issue of electability and how the country will respond to having all of this brought out again in the general election is worth talking about in the primary. So far Edwards hasn't gone there. No one has. But if she continues to lead...
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Case for Edwards, Part IV
In the wake of the Hillary-Obama pissing contest over their willingness to use nuclear weapons, John Edwards is emerging more and more clearly as the candidate espousing a safe and sane approach to national security matters.
If we go back a couple of months to Edwards' speech in May at the Council on Foreign Relations, his words are a compelling antidote to the bellicose and idiotic rhetoric coming from the Democratic frontrunners. If only these words echoed in the mainstream media instead of wild speculation about nuclear attacks: "We need to recognize that we have far more powerful weapons available to us than just bombs, and we need to bring them to bear. We need to reengage the world with the full weight of our moral leadership."
Few noted Edwards' response in the Youtube debate to the question that sparked the whole fued over Obama's supposed naivete. When asked about meeting with regimes like North Korea's and Iran's, Edwards initially threw a bone to Clinton's worry about "propaganda". (A ridiculous concern anyway. When a dictator like Casto or Kim Jong-Il maintains control over information, all news is propaganda anyway, and what does a dictator with an iron grip on power need with public opinion? With all of her talk about 'naivete', isn't rather naive of Clinton herself to worry about "propaganda"? To me Clinton's answer was superficial and really was, as Obama said, business as usual.)
But Edwards redirected the question back to a larger point about America's role in the world.
But I think this is just a piece of a bigger question, which is, what do we actually do? What should the president of the United States do to restore America's moral leadership in the world. It's not enough just to lead with bad leaders. In addition to that, the world needs to hear from the president of the United States about who we are, what it is we represent.
Exactly. He couldn't expand on those thoughts, because Time Nazi Anderson Cooper was shutting him down even as he spoke for that brief moment. But his speech in May sheds more light on what exactly Edwards means by "moral leadership." After his now-famous critique of the phrase, "war on terror," Edwards went on to define a different foreign policy approach that would replace the militaristic approach of the Bush administration.
The question is, what should replace the war on terror? Since the end of the Cold War, folks here at CFR and elsewhere have been engaged in an effort to be the next George Kennan and define the era. As all of you know, we need a new strategy for rebuilding a strong military for a new century.
Any new strategy must include new preventive measures to win the long-term struggle and fuel hope and opportunity. This includes strong and creative diplomacy, and also new efforts to lead the fight against global poverty. I've proposed a plan to lead an international effort to educate every child in the world. As president, I would increase foreign assistance by $5 billion a year to make millions of people safer, healthier, and more democratic, and by creating a cabinet-level post to lead this effort.
Any new strategy must improve how we gather intelligence. From my years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know how difficult this can be. We must always seek to protect our national security by aggressively gathering intelligence in accordance with proven methods.
Yet we cannot do so by abandoning human rights and the rule of law. As two former generals recently wrote in the Washington Post, "If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable... we drive... undecideds into the arms of the enemy." And we must avoid actions that will give terrorists or even other nations an excuse to abandon international law. As president, I will close Guantanamo Bay, restore habeas corpus, and ban torture. Measures like these will help America once again achieve its historic moral stature—and lead the world toward democracy and peace.
He goes on to explain his vision of when military force is appropriate:
We must be clear about when it is appropriate for a commander-in-chief to use force. As president, I will only use offensive force after all other options including diplomacy have been exhausted, and after we have made efforts to bring as many countries as possible to our side. However, there are times when force is justified: to protect our vital national interests... to respond to acts of aggression by other nations and non-state actors... to protect treaty allies and alliance commitments... to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons... and to prevent or stop genocide.
Certainly there's a lot of wiggle room in the phrase "protect our vital interests". But it's clear from his critique of the Bush war in Iraq that ideologically driven agendas are not the appropriate use of the US military. It's clear that he defines vital US interests in a pre-Bush mindset.
And it's clear from Edwards' life's work and his stand against corporate lobbyists that he doesn't view US interests and corporate interests as being the same thing. More than the other leading candidates, Edwards rejects the influence of corporations in governing and by extension in foreign policy.
He goes on to explain three clear roles of the armed forces, but adds this important point:
Yet we must remember the complementary relationship between military force and diplomacy. Too often during the past six years, this Administration's diplomatic efforts have left the U.S. with two unacceptable options: do nothing or use force. We must do better than that. We should always seek to solve problems peacefully, preferably working with others. Yet one of the oldest rules of statecraft is that diplomacy is most effective when backed by a strong military. That does not mean, however, that every problem needs a military answer; far from it.
Edwards' speech is, at the very least, a starting point for a new discussion of what role the military plays in a post-Bush world, and how he would develop a rational and moral foreign policy. He's clearly moved beyond the tough-talking "me-too" rhetoric of the 04 election. If only Obama and Clinton would begin to have similarly sensible conversations, rather than dueling with one another in a futile attempt to out-tough the Republicans, who are ultimately going to paint them as wimps anyway. We could at least, as Edwards has done, try to sound a little smarter than them.
The full text of Edwards' speech is here.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Edwards Reads Into My Own
OK, not really.
But he makes the same argument here that I made recently on this site: the haircut nonsense is deliberately designed to take attention off the issues Edwards is raising.
Watch:
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Are there only two candidates in the Dem race?
Just finished watching the advisors for Obama and Clinton arguing about whether to meet with dictators or not.
As Greg Sargent pointed out, CNN and the other media outlets occasionally act as though there are only two candidates in the race. If anything, this spat between Obama and Hillary should be an opening for Edwards, who after all, approached the question from an entirely different persective:
COOPER: Senator Edwards, would you meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il?
EDWARDS: Yes, and I think actually Senator Clinton's right though. Before that meeting takes place, we need to do the work, the diplomacy, to make sure that that meeting's not going to be used for propaganda purposes, will not be used to just beat down the United States of America in the world community.
But I think this is just a piece of a bigger question, which is, what do we actually do? What should the president of the United States do to restore America's moral leadership in the world. It's not enough just to [meet] with bad leaders. In addition to that, the world needs to hear from the president of the United States about who we are, what it is we represent.
Ed Week: National Standards, and Edwards
Education Week is always worth reading. It requires registration which allows you to view two articles weekly (more if you subscribe).
This week I used my permissions for a an article on John Edwards and an important discussion on national standards and how they could play into NCLB.
Lost in the debate in Washington about the war, Gonzalez, and Bush's idiotic veto of SCHIP is the fact that NCLB reauthorization is underway, and that national standards is part of the discussion. That should raise huge red flags for everyone, as national standards are only a short jump from a national test, and if you think we have problems now, wait til there's a national test.
Some excerpts from each article below.
On Edwards:
Speaking to about 250 people in Pittsburgh's impoverished Hill district, Edwards criticized last month's Supreme Court decision rejecting school diversity plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky. He said the ruling turned "on its head" the landmark 1954 desegregation decision stemming from the Brown v. Board of Education case.
The former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate proposed giving bonuses to schools in affluent areas that enroll low-income students, creating magnet schools in inner cities and providing bonus pay for teachers willing to teach in inner cities. He also pitched the idea of "second-chance schools" for those who dropped out of high school.
"We shouldn't give up on these children," he said.
For the record, the second chance schools idea is a terrific one. One of the best concrete education proposals to come out of a presidential campaign in a long time.
Here's a sample from the comment thread on national standards.
Although I live in what many consider the most conservative, "hands off" state in the union (Idaho), I find myself agreeing with proponents of federal education standards. As expressed by several other commenters, the disparity between state assessment results and those provided by NAEP and national assessments demonstrate the states' lack of honesty when it comes to establishing standards and reporting results.
Public education is a multi-faceted system, charged with providing a well-rounded learning experience to its constituents. Integral to that learning, however, is a focus on the core skills that create opportunties in this ever more complex world. Art, music, etc, are important facets of the experience, but simply not as important as reading, math and science. It is ironic to me that the states want more and more federal dollars, but do everything in their power to maneuver around being held accountable for its use.
I don't believe anyone is proposing federal control of curriculum or instructional methodology. I'm not sure how a set of consistent reading, math, science, etc, standards reduces local control. Anybody want to explain it to me?
Well, the issue is high stakes for the test. If the test becomes a way to beat states and districts over the head as being failures, then you will have some huge regional disparities around the country. Not good. We have to get past the idea of using tests to punish schools.
If all we want is comparison points, we have that. It's the NAEP. We can expand the number of schools that do it.
You want to start a fight? Start discussing a national social studies standard. What history we teach, and so on. Think that's political?
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Sunday Reading: Four Trials by John Edwards
(Note: This is the third in a series of posts on the candidacy of John Edwards. Links to the other pieces follow in the "Links" section of this post.)
I
Ohio is one of those states which has enacted so-called "tort reform," the lawsuit protections which cap monetary awards that plaintiffs can obtain through litigation. Let's call it tort "deform", since the purpose is not to fix anything, but rather to break it, to take away consumers' rights and limit their ability to seek redress through the courts. With years of Republican rule, a weak, lap dog governor, and industry-friendly conservative justices on the Supreme Court, Ohio's tort laws have been rewritten at the pleasure of the insurance industry, and sold to voters as a way of keeping doctors in business. Ken Blackwell in his recent (and fortunately failed) gubernatorial bid famously, and falsely, claimed that patients equidistant between Dayton and Richmond, which would be in the area of my former home town (Greenville) went to Indiana for births because there were only two Ob-Gyn's in Dayton. Not true, by any stretch, as I know at least two who delivered my own children at Miami Valley, and several others in their practice. And there's more than one practice operating at the Valley. And there's more than one hospital in Dayton, not to mention Wayne Hospital in Greenville, which offers maternity services, and where many Darke County babies are born. (Sorry, the Townhall link to the Blackwell story isn't working.) Nonetheless, these kinds of scare tactics are used to convince voters that tort reform is necessary to maintain the level of medical services they are used to.
Some evidence suggests that insurance premiums are levelling off as a result of normal insurance cycles, and not as the result of "reforms" like Ohio's, as the insurance industry would have you believe. In fact, rates continued to rise after Taft signed tort reform, and insurers insisted it was becasue they also needed a lock-step Ohio Supreme Court to uphold the law, in contrast to what more consumer-oriented courts in previous decades had done to previous "reforms"--they were overturned twice previously.
The provisions of Ohio's law range from insidious to ridiculous. One provision would protect employers from injury to employees on the job unless the employer specifically intended to hurt the employee... which if I'm not mistaken (of course I'm not a prosecutor) would be...assault? Another provision protects restauranteurs from obesity related lawsuits.
The public disdain for lawsuits is further fed by caricatures like the McDonald's coffee lawsuit. To the average uninformed voter, the story is that a woman got $6 million for spilling her McDonald's coffee. These kinds of stories, passed around without a full accounting, tend to drive public opinion in support of lawsuit reform, when in fact the case was more serious than the myth would suggest:
79 year old Stella Liebeck suffered third degree burns on her groin and inner thighs while trying to add sugar to her coffee at a McDonalds drive through. Third degree burns are the most serious kind of burn. McDonalds knew it had a problem. There were at least 700 previous cases of scalding coffee incidents at McDonalds before Liebeck's case. McDonalds had settled many claim before but refused Liebeck's request for $20,000 compensation, forcing the case into court. Lawyers found that McDonalds makes its coffee 30-50 degrees hotter than other restaurants, about 190 degrees. Doctors testified that it only takes 2-7 seconds to cause a third degree burn at 190 degrees. McDonalds knew its coffee was exceptionally hot but testified that they had never consulted with burn specialist. The Shriner Burn Institute had previously warned McDonalds not to serve coffee above 130 degrees. And so the jury came back with a decision- $160,000 for compensatory damages. But because McDonalds was guilty of "willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct" punitive damages were also applied. The jury set the award at $2.7 million. The judge then reduced the fine to less than half a million. Ms. Liebeck then settled with McDonalds for a sum reported to be much less than a half million dollars. McDonald's coffee is now sold at the same temperature as most other restaurants.
The call for lawsuit reform reverberated on the right, and continues, in spite of the fact that lawsuits are actually now and have been going down. According to Jon Greenbaum, the number of lawsuits has decreased since 1975 along with the average award to plaintiffs. The Ohio lawyer and blogger Russ Bensing provided some rather startling statistics on his excellent legal blog, The Briefcase, supporting this same conclusion. In describing reports by the Ohio Supreme Court on court filings statewide, he found:
One of the reports included in the summary is a tabulation of case filings, by type — professional tort, product liability, and so forth. Out of curiosity, I compared the new case filings in various categories in the 2006 summary with the same info in the 1999 summary, the oldest one available on the court’s site. That comparison doesn’t give a whole lot of support to the idea that Ohio is suffering from a litigation explosion, at least insofar as torts go. New filings in professional torts are down 44% from 1999; product liability filings have decreased by 37%, and “other torts” have declined by 18%. By comparison, new criminal cases, as you might expect, are a growth stock, climbing by 38% in the past seven years.
II
The antidote to these repeated calls for "reform" has to be specific stories about lawsuits in which innocent people, through no fault of their own, became victims of the negligence or greed of profit making enterprises. It was into this environment of attacks on the very notion of seeking redress in the court of law that John Edwards came forward with his Four Trials, an account of his life and four of the heartbreaking lawsuits that helped define his career as a trial lawyer in North Carolina.
Each of the four stories Edwards tells serves as an affirmation of the need for unfettered access to the courts, and the foolishness of limiting "non-economic" damages, as Ohio has done. The first case, one of Edwards' first, was tried on behalf of an alcoholic who sought damages after being prescribed triple the recommended dosage of Antabuse by his doctor. The dosage put the patient into a coma and caused permanent brain damage. Another case involved a breech baby delivered vaginally--with umbilical cord impaction leading to cerebral palsy--to working class parents when C-section clearly should have been ordered.
The story of these clients' lives and their trials is compelling, as is the description Edwards provides of his legal strategy and argument in the cases. But what also emerges from Edwards' narrative is an understanding that there really isn't a level playing field between a patient and a large hospital when the patient is injured. That is to say, there isn't a level playing field without the courts and without the expertise of a qualified attorney like Edwards. In both of these cases, the clients were left with devastating, life long, and expensive care needs as a result of the mistakes their doctors made. Any ceiling for damages simply would not have allowed the victims to receive the compensation they needed for their care.
In a third case, Edwards tells the story of a young boy of 7 whose parents were killed by a truck driver on a North Carolina highway. Again, the story pits a working class family--in this case a grandmother and her grandchild--against a large corporation protecting profits and denying responsibility for the mistakes of one of its workers. In the aftermath of this courtroom victory, Edwards explains that North Carolina enacted a "reform" of its own, limiting the damages collected by a plaintiff for an action carried out by an employee of a company.
III
The final case Edwards describes led to Tucker Carlson callously calling him a "jacuzzi lawyer". The victim here was a young girl, Valerie Lakey, who was tragically and needlessly caught in a pool drain, the suction of which was powerful enough to eviscerate her, leaving her in need of colostemy and TPN for the rest of her life. An excerpt from the book's description of the accident:
"And apparently then at some point the suction broke because he had her in his arms... And that's when I saw there was--the water was really red with blood and there was tissue all around." ...
David (Valerie's father) later testified that "at that point i must have been hysterical because I just picked her up and held her. I laid down next to the pool and I just held on to her and I prayed until the ambulanc got there... And David talked to her. Over and over again, "Daddy love you. Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you."...
"What happened?" gasped Sandy (Valerie's mother). "Did she drown?"
"Sandy," said (a friend's) mother in a quaking voice, "I'm holding her intestines in my hand."
The case is one of "joint and several liability," and it is worth noting that this kind of liability is a target of many tort reform efforts, including Ohio's, where this kind of liability has been severely limited by the law. It means that multiple parties can be held liable for the same act, and in this case, that referred to the country club where the incident occurred and the county which inspected the pool. Each party then, was considered to be liable, even though each party may have only had partial cause in tragedy. Settlements were reached with each party except the manufacturer of the drain cover, and this company became the defendants in the lawsuit.
As the case unfolded, it became clear that tragedies similar to Valerie's had occurred many times across the country, even leading to death in some instances. It also became clear that the manufacturer was aware of the problems with their drain cover, and ignored it, in spite of the fact that a 2 cent solution to the problem was clear to expert engineers who testified in the case. Furthermore, it became clear that the company's lawyers had instructed their product safety specialist to lie on the witness stand about his knowledge of the product's defects.
The jury gave the Lakey's a substantial award, as one might expect, to compensate Valerie's family for the lifelong medical needs she would endure, but also to punish the company for its egregious conduct.
However, what makes the Lakey case even more remarkable is that Edwards' son Wade was tragically killed in a car accident prior to the trial's commencement. Throught Four Trials, Edwards links elements of his own biography to the stories he tells about his clients, making connections between his world and theirs. The result is a masterful non-fiction narrative which is compelling and moving throughout. But nowhere is the connection between client and lawyer as clear as in this section of the book. Edwards confesses at the end that when he was fighting for Valerie, he was fighting for his own son Wade at the same time. When he spoke to the jury about Sandy's love for her daughter, he was speaking at the same time about his wife Elizabeth's pain for her own lost son. Edwards speaks eloquently and without sentimentality about his own mourning and how his work helped him deal with his grief.
With this context in mind, Tucker Carlson's mindless wisecrack becomes even more odious, as do the remarks he made to Tim Grieve in Salon around the time of Edwards' speech at the 2004 Democratic convention:
"My contention is not that the girl wasn't grievously injured or deserves compensation, nor is it that he doesn't have the right to make $8 million off her suffering. My only point is that if you're going to make 7 or 8 or 6 or whatever million dollars off her suffering, don't claim it's an altruistic act," Carlson said.
Right, but isn't calling it a "Jacuzzi case" -- without further explanation -- somehow dismissive of what actually happened? "Are you going to lecture me? Are you going to ask me a question or lecture me? My point is not that it's a wine-and-cheese thing, and I'm not against Jacuzzis. That's not my point at all."
Carlson said calling the Lakey tragedy a "Jacuzzi case" is just a "shorthand" way to ask whether Edwards should really be seen as acting altruistically for the "little people" when he made so much money off the case. "I'm merely saying that, if you're going to make all that money, don't turn around and tell me that you're better than I am," Carlson said.
A couple of points. First, people get paid for their work. Lawyers do, doctors do, teachers do. Sometimes they work for free, and other times they don't. When a jury assigns $24 million in punitive damages, maybe it's OK for an attorney to take a cut. Especially when the attorney and his firm assumed an enormous and potentially business-killing risk, and sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into preparation for that particular trial. Even the altruistic work that teachers and doctors do sometimes earns them a living.
But then again, Carlson's derision isn't all that surprising considering the corporate interests he represents. To them, a child's injury is simply a calculation in a balance sheet, a normal part of doing business. (In the case involving the truck that killed a boy's parents, a company official even admitted as much, arguing that "it was a given that some lives would be lost" in his industry). On the other hand, Edwards never failed, at least in this book, to see his clients as individuals, as people with dreams and aspirations that he took the time to know and care about, to see their pain and to see a path to return some semblance of normalcy to their shattered lives. It is a moral vision which stands in sharp contrast to the tort reformers of our country.
Links
A truly excellent review from David Greenburg in Legal Affairs: Why the Ace Lawyer Became a Lackluster Candidate
Great resources from the Center for Justice and Democracy on the issue of tort reform and medical malpractice.
Tort Reform Does Not Equal Malpractice Insurance Reform
Edwards 2008
Powell's Books; Excerpt
Edwards talks about the book and his son Wade, 4 years ago in Iowa (USA Today)
The Case for Edwards, Part I
The Case for Edwards, Part II
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Case for Edwards, Pt. II
The Case for Edwards, in which I discuss this haircut nonsense.
In Part I of "The Case For Edwards", I discussed his fight against poverty as one of the main reasons why I think Edwards' campaign is worth supporting.
You'll notice, then, that the two main critiques (or attacks) of Edwards in the media have been directed squarely at his advocacy for the poor. I mean of course the discussions of his haircuts, and the hit piece in the Times which suggested that his anti-poverty foundation was created for the purpose of travelling Edwards around the country to campaign for president.
The first attack is of course so plainly intellectually dishonest that picking it apart is like shooting fish in a barrel. As Digby pointed out recently, no one seems to mention the fact that the candidate the right wing seems to have a crush on, Fred Thompson, has his hair and makeup done on a daily basis, and has for years:
Despite all this new chatter about hair cuts and make-up, it's interesting that we haven't heard a thing about the one candidate in the field who actually makes a living day in and day out wearing make-up during the entire workday (and no, I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton.) Like his namesake, the "southern fried Reagan" Fred Thompson has had hair and make-up professionals touching up his rugged visage day in and day out for years. He probably also gets manicures and facials and might even get various parts of his body waxed. (In Hollywood Fred's world, make-up is the least of it.)
Furthermore, the compassionate Christian himself, the man who claims Jesus as his favorite political philosopher, is purported to spend up to $10,000 on a suit, not to mention his multi-million dollar fake ranch. I think Jesus advocated giving away your worldly possessions as part of his "political philosophy", so Bush's expensive digs would make Jesus roll over in his, well, Heaven. Funny how Jesus Junior's opulent wealth is never the subject of smug tut-tutting editorial remarks from our leading TV news personalities.
Look, outside of Dennis Kucinich, all of the candidates for president in both parties are filthy rich by normal standards. You have to be rich to run, and the fact is, rich people spend more on haircuts than us common folk, and more on clothes, more on cars, more on their homes, more on furniture, art, and travel. But it's always the Dems who advocate for the poor who get beaten up for it. The implied argument is that the only people who can advocate for the poor are those who walk the streets like a barefooted Ghandi and fly coach. A wingnut friend of mine argued until he was blue in the face in 04 that Kerry couldn't be taken seriously on repealing Bush's tax cuts because he benefitted from them himself. Only if Kerry had given the money to the government could he have any legitimate claim to argue against the tax cuts. Of course this is ludicrous, but the mainstream media seizes on any perceived mote in the eye of left leaning politicians while ignoring the beams in the eyes of those on the right. It's nothing more than a transparent attempt to delegitimize the discourse of social justice and protect the interests of wealthy corporate elite.
It's also interesting that Edwards is the kind of man that the up-by-your-boostraps right is supposed to admire: a man who rose from modest means to greatness, and who, according to the right's mythology, ought to enjoy the benefits of the wealth he has created. But I guess that only applies when you use that wealth to further protect the interests of your new wealthy brethren by fighting for capital gains tax cuts and against increases to the federal minimum wage.
So when they attack Edwards for his haircut, let's be honest--if it weren't the haircut it would be the clothes, the home, or his children's education, because it's not about the haircut, it's about attacking his call for social justice. The attacks on his poverty foundation are so thin and hypocritical, and Edwards' campaign has answered them so well, that I won't discuss them any further here.
Edwards really has nothing to apologize for. He spent $400 on a haircut, whereas I spend $15. So what. Wealthy men do that. He probably spends $200 on Italian leather shoes, while I bargain hunt for $30 loafers. I buy clearance Dockers for $24.99 at the outlet mall, and Edwards probably gets his tailored. I get that. That's life. My glasses have the frames chewed up by my dog and I'm too cheap to get new ones because my insurance only covers $25 towards frames. That doesn't mean that Edwards can't relate to me, or me to him. In fact, he relates better than someone like Bush because he's been in my shoes at one point in his life, even if he isn't there now.
"One America" doesn't mean that Edwards has to wear his Dockers until his wallet makes the seat threadbare and the cuffs fray, like I do, or that he has to empty his savings account. It does mean, however, that we're all in this together, that Edwards believes in using government to help the least among us, and to use the power of his office to make America a more just and equitable socie